


Those Things Will Kill You

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-06-24
Updated: 2001-06-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:26:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: There's something Xander wants to do before the Apocalypse.





	Those Things Will Kill You

**Author's Note:**

> My very first completed Buffy fic, written in 2001. Or at least the first one I didn't think I'd get run out of fandom for posting.

Any minute, he'd wake up. Any minute now would suit him fine. He'd wake up, and Dawn would be safe at home, and Buffy would be back to normal, and the world wouldn't be about to end, not this week anyway.

And he wouldn't be about to make what could arguably be the biggest mistake of his mistake-ridden life.

"You're sure about this, Harris? Because I don't want you going back and telling Glinda the Good Witch that I forced you. Being slammed against a wall by telekinesis might not kill me, but it'd bloody well hurt." Spike took a long drag on his cigarette, inhaled nicotine with something akin to ecstasy on his face.

Sure about this? He was barely sure of his name. All he knew was that the world had turned itself inside out, that they were all probably going to die ( _really_  probably-going-to-die, not like all the other times when they were only maybe probably-going-to-die)--well, except Spike, who was already dead anyway--and before he did, he wanted...he wanted....

He wanted. Period. Leave it at that.

And any minute now, he'd wake up, and this would be a dream. Just like always. And like always, he'd roll over in bed and wake Anya, seeking refuge in her caresses, using her body as a shield against the accusations made by his own subconscious: I do  _this_ , so I can't be  _that_. Keeping his options mutually exclusive, so he'd be safe.

Spike waved a hand in front of Xander's eyes. "Anyone home?"

"Wha--? Oh. Sorry." He had just apologized to Spike, for God's sake, what was  _wrong_  with him? Apart from the wanting, which he already knew was wrong with him, which had always been wrong with him, which he prayed to God nobody else ever found out was wrong with him--well, except Spike, who either already knew or had replaced Harmony as Dumbest Vampire Ever, but Spike didn't count because nobody ever listened to him anyway.

Xander watched Spike drop his cigarette and grind it into the floor, watched him light the next one, watched him... Just watched him, wanting--not Spike, not exactly; wanting lean muscles and deadly strength and bruising kisses, yes, but not wanting Spike the way he wanted Anya. Not forever. Just for a little while.

But he wanted... "I'm sure," he said at last, throat tight with fear. And then, in a sudden burst of honesty, "I think."

"This was your idea," Spike pointed out. " _I_  thought we should be getting this box back to Giles, see if Willow's managed to wake the Slayer up--" He paused for a second, then shook his head slightly and went on. "And you're the one who decided to jump me in an alley."

"There was no jumping." No, he had just pushed Spike against a wall, adrenaline screaming in his veins from the fight with that demon who'd started out looking like his eighth-grade math teacher, and kissed him, grinding his hips against Spike's so that there was no way the vampire could misconstrue his actions--and also so that Xander wouldn't have to find the words to go after  _I want._

If he didn't say it, it wasn't real.

And Spike, miraculously--or damnably; Xander couldn't decide--hadn't mocked him. He'd looked at Xander for a long moment, then said, "Yeah, all right," and led the way back to his crypt.

"What are you waiting for?" Spike asked. "We don't have all night."

Xander paced nervously, wondering how Spike could look so relaxed. The vampire was leaning lazily against the wall; if  _he_  was feeling any inner conflict about their situation, he was doing a damned good job of hiding it. "I...um..."

"What do you want?" Spike crossed over to Xander. "This?" He cupped Xander's face in his hands and kissed him--gently; he wouldn't have thought Spike could be gentle, except maybe to Dawn when he thought nobody was paying attention. Of course, he hadn't thought Spike could ever be helping them without a promise of large amounts of cash, so maybe there were some things about Spike he hadn't figured out yet.

But gentle was for Anya; tender kisses were for Saturday mornings watching cartoons (watching her watch cartoons and root for Elmer Fudd and that doomed schmuck of a coyote, and falling in love with her twenty times a minute) and lazy Sunday afternoons spent in bed. That was completely separate from what he wanted from Spike. It had to be, that way lay only things he'd decided years ago were best never thought about.

"No. God no," he muttered as soon as he could breathe. "Not like that."

"Really? I always pegged you for the sort who'd want to cuddle first, but--" This time, Spike's hands were on either side of Xander, trapping him against the damp wall, and the kisses were far from gentle.  _He can't hurt me,_  Xander reminded himself, even as Spike slipped his hand between their bodies, two thin layers of fabric all that lay between that hand and Xander's suddenly very hard cock.

Then the hand moved away, and Xander moaned in protest.

"Want something?"

Xander only nodded; saying it would make it real.

"What?" Spike grinned, and if Xander hadn't known better, he'd have thought that grin a prelude to draining his blood and leaving him in a ditch somewhere. That might even be preferable to what was (probably; he could still come to his senses) going to happen.

Spike had actually thought about what he would want in bed. Oh yeah, dead in a ditch was sounding good right about now.

 _He can't hurt you,_  he told himself again, but he could. He could make Xander say it, make him admit... "What do you think?"

"I  _think_ ," said Spike, "that I'm not fucking anyone who's too good to even ask for it."

But if he asked for it, then he'd have admitted to it. The big It, the It that had dogged his steps for so long that he'd forgotten what life had been like before It had been there. The Secret, capitalized out of respect for the gibbering wreck It could make of his brain. And even if Anya never found out--and this wasn't about hurting Anya, he didn't want that--he wasn't dealing with this right now. And there'd probably never be a "later" for it to come back and bite him in the ass, so he'd be just fine as long as he didn't say anything.

"Fine," he said, a little shakily. "Let's go, then."

"Bloody hell. You really are Mister Repression, aren't you? Loosen up a bit or you'll wind up giving yourself a stroke by the time you're thirty."

"Great. The world's about to end, and I'm letting myself be psychoanalyzed by a vampire who hasn't quite grasped the idea that the Billy Idol look is over."

"I'm stunned myself," Spike said. "When you could be letting said vampire--who is prepared to generously overlook the fact that you're wearing that shirt--do more interesting things to parts of your body that appear to be slightly more functional than your brain."

"Shut up, Spike."

"And do what?"

"Whatever you want."

"What if I want to play backgammon?"

"Fuck you."

A shrug. "Close enough."

Xander's brain, with twenty years of experience in dealing with things it wasn't sure it liked, decided to step aside for the duration; it was getting difficult to think, anyway, when his head was filled with  _I want I want I want_...

Wanted this: Spike's hands, cool on exposed flesh (not disgusting-dead-cold, as he'd been half-expecting, but just cool enough to remind him that, despite (or maybe because of) the Billy Idol complex, Spike wasn't human), sending shiver-thrills through his body when Spike finally got the damned clothes out of the way and curled long fingers around Xander's cock.

Wanted this: Spike's mouth, strangely cool as well, like the time Anya had held an ice cube in her mouth and-- _not gonna think about Anya_ \--that mouth, surrounding his cock, and  _damn_ , a hundred years of practice really did make perfect, which he must have said out loud, because Spike was looking very pleased with himself.

Wanted this: the world sliding away from him, so that he thought for a second that the universe really was ending, but no, it was just that none of the rest of it mattered just then. His knees buckled under him; he glanced up with eyes that didn't seem to remember how to focus properly, in time to see Spike's throat ripple as he swallowed...

Wanted this: Spike standing before him (Xander wondered, for a moment, about the source of the blood that so obviously flowed in Spike's veins, and then decided to add it to all the other Things Not to Think About), a hunger in his eyes that had nothing to do with blood.

Wanted this: to see Spike's eyes close in pleasure when Xander reached out and stroked his cock, to hear him whimper when Xander gave in to the temptation to find out what vampire tasted like. To hear him swearing (quietly, fluently, and appreciatively) as Xander tried to demonstrate that he was a fast learner.

Wanted this: an unfamiliar taste on his tongue, and Spike breathing "Bloody  _hell_ ," in an unsteady voice, and slumping back against the wall.

And then it was all over, and they were eyeing one another in wary silence, and  _this_  was not something Xander had ever wanted.

Then the fear took over, and he found words again. "Anya doesn't hear about this.  _No one_  hears about this." Anya. He  _loved_  Anya, damn it; what the hell did he think he'd just been doing?

"Oh yeah, because I'm going to be running right out to tell everyone about the worst blowjob I've ever had."

That hurt. It shouldn't--for God's sake, this was Spike, and did he even  _want_  to be good at this, given that he was Never. Doing. It. Again? It did, anyway. "The worst?"

Spike's eyes were half closed, and he appeared to be calculating something in his head. "Nah. Cheer up, Harris, only third worst."

"Do I want to know who's worse than I am?"

Spike shrugged. "Harmony. No imagination." nsider His Soulfulness. And no. You want to be the one to tell her?"

"That's one."

"And the other is none of your business."

"You can't tell someone he's the third-worst you've ever had without giving him some idea of what that means." Because there were rules, or if there weren't, there ought to be.  _Rules like 'don't let vampires blow you in a cemetery'?_  his brain suggested on its way back from wherever it had gone.

"Means you're terrible."

"Spike--"

A grin. "Oh well, it's not like I care about hurting the nancy-boy's feelings. All right. You're marginally better than Angelus. Marginally. "

"Angelus? You--with Angel? But you don't even  _like_  him."

"I don't like you either. Didn't really seem to stop me, now did it?"

"Does Buffy know?"

"I imagine she found out, unless the soul brought with it some improved skills. He wasn't much good at anything else, either."

Xander resisted the urge to smack him. "Does Buffy know that you and Angel--"

"Angelus," Spike corrected. "I've never been desperate enough to consider His Soulfulness. And no. You want to be the one to tell her?"

There was a tiny part of him that did, but that would be wrong and would lead to questions he didn't want to answer. And probably to Buffy killing him. "No," he admitted. "But stop complaining. No one forced you, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Not meeting Xander's eyes, which was weird; since when did  _Spike_  get embarrassed?

No one had forced him, either. But they were probably going to die tomorrow, and he didn't want to die without finding out if he really--

Oh God. What if they didn't die? What if he was actually going to have to walk around knowing that he--and with  _Spike_ \--and Anya would kill him; just because she no longer had demonic powers didn't mean she couldn't resort to old-fashioned violence. Even worse, what if he had to spend the rest of his life looking at Spike and remembering (and  _wanting_ )...

 _It never happened_ , he told himself as he finished getting his clothes back into something passing for order. He was good at playing that game; it had kept him sane throughout his childhood.

Well, mostly sane.

_It never happened, it never happened, it never--_

"We should go," Spike said abruptly.

"Yeah."

Outside the crypt, Spike lit up another cigarette, and Xander forced himself to think of something other than nicotine-flavored kisses. "Those things will kill you, you know," he said, in what he hoped was a light tone.  _Not watching the way he sucks the smoke down, greedy, desperate, like the way he--not thinking, not thinking, la la la, I can't hear you..._

"Take it from me, there's worse things than being dead, Harris."

Oh, sure, because he needed Spike to tell him that.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
